"So let me get this straight, this island is controlled by bounty hunters that prey on the unfortunate pirates that come here," Lyson asks his captive, wrapped in a bundle of rope and a gag to his mouth.
The man frantically nods.
"You get them drunk and tired so you can attack them when they are prone..."
Another frantic nod.
"And you all work for this Baroque organization that takes mercenaries and bounty hunters and you only revealed that after I threatened to drop you 100 feet in the air."
The man nods one more time, fear in his eyes.
"And this island has no ship that cannot be operated by one person."
The man stops to think for a moment before nodding.
Lyson turns away from his captive as he watches the darkening sky. A million thoughts run through his head as he watches the half-moon rise above the clouds.
'Just fucking peachy, my first chance on a new island and this happens. I wonder if those pirates have what it takes to deal with this. This island is one hell of a baptism to the Grand Line, but they might be able to care for themselves. I only gave them a portion of the information from my notes, but I still have more cards on the table if I want to negotiate with them again.' Lyson thinks to himself as he turns to his captor once more, earning a muffled "Eeep!".
Lyson walks up to him, reaches down, and yanks the man's hair until their faces barely touch. Lyson looks at the bounty hunter dead in the eyes and says blankly, "Be grateful, I have other matters to attend so I won't attempt to get more information out of you, but hear me now, if I ever see you or any of your companions near me," Lyson's black eyes harden for a moment, "I will re-define the word hell for you. Understood?"
Lyson removes the man's gag and walks away as the bounty hunter yells, "You devil! Get away from me!"
Lyson doesn't stop but gives the bounty hunter one more side-eye glance before making his way to the village.
After stealing the bounty hunter's map of the island, Lyson makes his way to the seemingly barren town, looking for any semblance of people. After wandering around for a few minutes, he finds a disturbing sight. Dozens of downed people were littered all over the village, most likely the bounty hunters. Lyson approaches a man slumped against a wall, a long musket to his side, and notices the sword slashes that run across his shoulder.
"Sword slashes?" Lyson mutters before looking around and noticing similar injuries on the other bounty hunters.
"The only swordsman on that crew was Zoro, but did he really take them all out? Who exactly are these people?" Lyson mutters to himself as a light gust of wind rustles some paper on the ground. Out of pure curiosity, Lyson picks up the poster and sees it's a pirate bounty with a familiar smiling face.
DEAD-OR-ALIVE
MONKEY D. LUFFY
30,000,000 BELI
Lyson stares at the poster with a blank face before rubbing his eyes and looking again, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
'Not only am I deserted on a bounty hunter island, but apparently, they know about Luffy's bounty, meaning they're gonna cause some trouble.' Lyson groans internally, rubbing his temples.
After a moment to calm himself, a thought comes to the scientist, 'If their captain has such a high bounty, then, of course, they can handle themselves, but they also might be my ticket out of here since I have nothing against them. Now the problem finding them in this huge tow-'
BOOOOOM!
The earth itself shakes as an explosion and a bright flash of orange appear someway in front of Lyson followed by a faint, strangled cry. Lyson looks up, sees a plume of black smoke nearby, and quirks an eyebrow.
"I am going to regret this, aren't I?" Lyson says with a deadpan expression before running toward the source of the explosion.
After a few minutes, Lyson sees a familiar head of orange hair and stops dead in his tracks. From a distance, he sees Nami sitting casually on a barrel, and next to her, a large, injured man is lying on the ground. The purple-haired teen slows downs to a walk as Nami notices him, hopping off her barrel.
"Oh, you're still here? I thought you would be off this island already."
"Well, when one gets dropped off on an island full of bounty hunters, you tend to try and keep a low profile." He replies with an accusatory reply.
"Hey! It's not our fault that this was a honeytrap. It was just bad luck!" Nami retorts back before giving him a questioning look, "So how did you find out about the bounty hunters?"
"Ran into a few and took care of them," Lyson said simply. " I'm not prone to fight, but I can handle myself fine." Lyson looks around the area, seeing damaged buildings and scorching craters littering all throughout.
"Did someone bring a barrel of gunpowder and light a match?"
"Those were caused by Mr 5, young man." The man on the ground speaks up for the first time.
"Mr 5?" Lyson repeats before turning to Nami, "Any relation to that Mr 9 guy?"
Nami simply shrugs before saying, "The organization is called Baroque Works, and apparently, the lower the number, the higher on the ladder they are. That Mr 5 guy had a Devil fruit that made a bunch of explosions-"
"-Did you say he had a Devil Fruit?" Lyson quickly whips out his book, giving Nami a look of rapt attention. "He created explosions? Did he touch something and made it explode? Did explosions come from his body? Did his arms expand? Did he have to hit something to store energy into it-?" Lyson got closer and closer with each question with a mad gleam in his eyes.
"GEEZ! HE JUST FLINGED HIS BOOGER!" Nami yells, backing away.
"Oh," The interest in Lyson's eyes dies down a few tones before opening his book and rapidly flipping through page after page until he stops at a picture of a black apple with light orange swirls and a stem that resembles a dynamite cord. "Then he probably has the Bomu-Bomu Fruit, a Devil Fruit that allows the user to generate explosions from their body. It can be their fists or anything their body creates like hair, sweat, fingernails, and...boogers can be rigged to explode at the user's will. An added bonus is that the user is completely and utterly immune to any explosion, whenever their own or an outside source." After that explanation, Lyson closes his book before looking at the shocked faces of Nami and the injured man.
"What?" Lyson asks as the injured man starts doing an impression of a goldfish.
"Ma ma ma, you were able to find out Mr 5's abilities from that one detail about him?!" The man stammers.
Lyson begins to explain, "There are a lot of Devil Fruits that can do similar things, but they all have their differences and those differences are essential to combating them. Did you also forget that someone who can bomb a building and come out unscathed is on this island? I can fight, but not-"
"Zoro can handle them,"
Lyson quirks an eyebrow at the navigator's calm statement, "I can admit that guy is strong in a sense, but you shouldn't depend on him all the ti-"
BOOOOM!
A distant chain of explosions rocks the earth again as the three look toward the direction the sound came from.
"See?" Lyson points toward the billowing smoke, "He has no chance fighting them! If your ship is still docked here, we can just leave!"
"Oh?" Nami turns to face Lyson with a raised eyebrow, "And what makes you think we'll be taking you again? Our deal is done and over with. Unless you got more to offer-"
"Of course, I have more to offer. If you read my notes, you know how knowledgeable I am in Devil Fruits so..." Lyson stops to observe Nami, who refuses to make eye contact when Lyson brings up the notes he gave.
"You did read them, didn't you?" Lyson asks, annoyance lacing his words.
"Well about that...we accidentally dropped it."
"Where did you drop the notes I took days to write in a way a child can understand such valuable info."
"The ocean." Nami says without any shame.
Lyson looks at the navigator like she told him she kicked a puppy into a volcano, but replies with gritted teeth, "Well then, I can just take another day or so to make a copy, so if you still want it-"
"No, we don't"
"Huh?" Lyson's frustrated demeanor slips away into confusion at the navigator's response.
"Obviously you giving us written notes didn't help us the first time so how about a new deal," Nami's face masked in total innocence, "We give you a ride to a new island, a much safer one than this one, and you give us information on Devil Fruits."
Lyson quirks an eyebrow, "What's the catch?"
"You have to give my crew a verbal lesson. No notes or anything. Sit down with us and teach us what you can, and we'll call it even."
"Hmm, fine. It's a deal." Lyson sticks his hand out which Nami takes into a firm handshake.
"Great!" Nami smiles before facing the direction of the explosion earlier, "Now if you would excuse me, I have some heads to bash in."
As Nami stomped off, Lyson heard a groan behind him and turned to see the injured man staggers to get up on his feet. Lyson takes note of the impact burns the man suffered as well as a clean sword slash across his chest.
"I don't think someone with your injuries should be walking around." Lyson quips as he walks over to his side and helps him up.
"Ma ma ma. Thank you, young man, but I must help my princess!"
"Princess? What kind of princess would be on this island? And another thing, who are you exactly?" Lyson questions as he walks with the injured man.
"I am the one known as Mr 8, but if you are allied with the pirates, my name is Igaram, Squad Captain of Security of the Kingdom of Alabasta. " Igaram states, limping to a nearby house.
Lyson stops for a moment as gears began to spin in his head, "So you're telling me that on this island, there is a princess from a kingdom that's one of the Sacred Twenty?!" he exclaims.
Igaram gives the teen a sideways glance before opening the door, "Yes, on this island is Princess Vivi, but she is also hiding under the alias of Miss Wednesday."
Lyson's eyes widen as he thinks back on his encounter with Miss Wednesday and stomps onto the house with Igaram asking, "So you're telling me that a Princess and her guard, and by guard I mean you, are going undercover as bounty hunters for Baroque Works. Are the financial issues in your kingdom that bad?"
Igaram whirls to face Lyson with a stern look, "Do not think of this as a simple ploy for money, our country is in a dire situation and we must purge it from the plague that is Baroque!" Igaram says with a strong tone as he begins to change his clothing, which Lyson promptly leaves the house to give him privacy.
Outside, Lyson raises an eyebrow at the man's wording, 'A plague? Does that mean that Baroque has been meddling with the affairs of Alabasta? Is someone trying to seize control of the kingdom? If Baroque is really trying to overthrow and gain control of a kingdom of the Sacred Twenty, then...', he's soon pulled out of his thoughts as Igaram leaves the house wearing an outfit similar to Miss Wednesday's, even matching the hairstyle.
"Now," Igaram says, holding 3 stuffed dummies under his arms, "we must meet up with our allies once again. Ma ma ma."
Lyson follows the guard with a confused stare, "I don't even want to know what you're planning, but, " Lyson waves the air in front of his nose, "Is the perfume really necessary?"
"I am not wearing perfume, young man."
"Really? I swear I can smell some flowers."
So... I'm back?
I recently got back into writing after a year of hiatus. I want to state that I never intend to drop the story, but I want to keep it alive as much as I can. I'm still having ideas to this day, but they take time to implement.
Also, it doesn't help that the manga introduces ideas and canon stuff that I have to account for, but I want to add that
(Spoiler ahead, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)
I semi-called out that the Gomu-Gomu Fruit isn't registered as a real Devil Fruit! I've always had a weird feeling about Luffy's fruit cause Paramecia Fruits are almost always activation-based, but Zoan can permanently alter one's body, such as the Human-Human Fruit giving Chopper human intelligence and speech even when he's in his original reindeer form.
(Spoilers end)
Happy reading!